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Wearnes CDD-120A CD-ROM reading problem.

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First post, by VladoT

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Hello,

I found a NOS Wearnes CDD-120A 2X CD-ROM drive in a flee-market manufactured in 1995.

The attachment 20250521_093533.jpg is no longer available

After replacing the belt, removing old grease and applying new one it was able to read pressed data and audio CDs without problem and playing them quite well. However, when I tried to insert recorded data CD-ROM only few of my CD-R disks got recognized. So, the question is:

Does old CD-ROM drives only accept 650MB CD-R disks and not 700MB+ ones?

Does old CD-ROM drives require only ISO file system and when Joilet is present it confuses it refusing to load?

Does old CD-ROM prefer only one type of recordable disk surface?

What are your thoughts, do I have defective unit or this is actually normal behaviour for this old 2x speed CD-ROM. I know that some of this problems could be solved with flashing new firmware (old Microsoft knowledge base article recommends this for this CD-ROM when used with Windows NT) but finding firmware for this old obscure drive is hard or possibly non existant at this moment.

Reply 1 of 1, by Thandor

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I used to use a CDD110 drive in my 286 and don’t recall having specific problems. Of course, as with almost all old drives, not all burned CD’s work. My experience is that burning at slow speeds greatly increases compatibility. I use a Pioneer DVR108BK to burn at 4x speed. Old reviews indicate that this CD burner is a high quality burner.

As of media; don’t go too fancy. The regular greenish dyed CD’s will usually work fine whereas expensive long life CD’s are more difficult to read in old drives.

thandor.net - hardware
And the rest of us would be carousing the aisles, stuffing baloney.

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